The best audiobook reading I have ever listened to

The book had me yearning to get on a train in a time before I was born and in a place before phones and social media. The story is great and each of the chapters function alone, and since I finished it a month ago I have found myself going back to my favourite journies repeatedly since. The performance by the reader is like nothing i have ever listened to. Not sure if I ought to be troubled by the full frontal Indian, Chinese and Japanese accents imitated throughout but the reality is i am not - the whole reading is fantastic theatre, a real one-man show and the dark comedy of Theroux's writing comes out through the incredible performance. The constant stream of consciousness of pomposity, alcoholism and colonial overhangs that pervade this book somehow don't come across as tasteless but rather as a guilty pleasure, feeling somehow terribly indulgent; I want to be boozed up, probably wearing all linen, in a first class sleeper, somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan without the sheer terror that would naturally come with doing that in the 21st century. Inevitably, I have the strong feeling this book is Marmite however and other listeners will either love it or hate it. Personally, like Marmite, I love it and I wish Frank Muller had narrated some of Theroux's other work but unfortunately this is the only one

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

brilliant

really excellent a classic excellent a classic excellent a classic excellent a classic excellent a classic read it today

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

A dream of dreams.

One of Theroux’s best. This time without moaning and just bearing the discomforts as they come. It is lovely to relive the places and tracks in lazy listening.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Enjoyable

The book is well narated. The story can get long winded and rambles in places, but it is descriptive and points à picture of what travelling round the world in the early 1970s was like

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Good story. Did not like the narrator.

Enjoyed the journey of this book but could have done with a better narrator. The voice grated and actually meant I didn't listen as often as I would have as it put me off. A very sardonic delivery gave a strange experience to the book. I had to work hard to get past that. That was a shame.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Excellent

Great book made all better by a superb narrator. It feels like you’re actually there.

Thanks

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Great to listen to while on a train

Enjoyed this book. Don't think long distance trains have changed much. Knowing in my lifetime I won't be able to take the trans Siberian is sad, but Paul's description doesn't leaving me wanting!

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

A fascinating rail travel book

This book gave me an excellent insight into travel through many countries in the 1970’s and their cultures. My only slight criticism is the writer is at times quite disparaging of others.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Detailed train journey but sometimes overly graphic

I did enjoy the story mostly, I just didn’t care at all for the overly graphic “adult” descriptions, mostly in chapter 26. Very, very graphic.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Train travel - human passage at its rawest

Brilliant evocation of life on a train through senseless bureaucracy, corruption, violence and random acts of kindness - I was a student in the USSR and took many long train journeys in various classes - he captures the ugliness and hypocrisy of that system perfectly with its anti-west sloganeering - people of all ages and backgrounds drinking to escape the grimness.
And I remember that relief of leaving.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!